May 26, 2016

Trump was on Kimmel's show last night, and when Jimmy asked, he said yes — with the condition that the proceeds would go to charity. Bernie immediately tweeted "Game on"!

This is great — great of and for both men.

Great for Trump because it shows — in addition to the instinct to toward charity — that he's unafraid and not inclined toward the passive role of standing back and letting his opponents beat each other up.

Great for Bernie because he's shown his readiness to debate and Hillary turned him down. She turned him down the day after she said — on "Meet the Press," when asked if she'd do the debate Bernie had accepted — "You know, I haven't thought about it." I wrote at the time: "How is that possible? That's an unforced lie." When she declined the debate the very next day, I thought it was ridiculous. She never bothered with the pretense of taking the idea of the debate seriously.

106 comments:

Bernie will be a lot tougher target. He may be misguided, but he is sincere and honest. And as has been said, you can't con an honest man, Trump's attacks all focus on people projecting one image while doing something different. Trump is a hypocrisy seeking missile, and say what you will about Bernie, he ain't no hypocrite.

"How is that possible?" The rest of us, by contrast, thought, yeah, of course, she'd say that.

"That's an unforced lie." As opposed to all her "forced" lies? The ones various bimbos and the VRWC and the FOIA demanded of her?

"When she declined the debate the very next day, I thought it was ridiculous" Ridiculous enough for Hillary! to "lose you"? What has she done recently that is not transparently self-servingly "ridiculous" in exactly the same way?

Both will be focused on tearing down Hillary, so it will be an odd sort of debate.

Everything Sebastian said is true--"unforced lie"! No, it was forced, forced by her DNA, forced by her inner nature (google "congenital liar"). Every word that comes out of her mouth is calculated to bring out a reaction in the listener. "Truth" is irrelevant. She wants to project disdain for Sanders, so she pretends to have forgotten he's still out there.

"say what you will about Bernie, he ain't no hypocrite." Hey, Bernie, until the day before yesterday you were the "independent" senator from Vermont. Now you want the Dem party nomination. Did you have a sudden conversion, or was the independent bit always a scam? Hey, Bernie, you are running as a supposedly honest man. Yet you treat Hillary's dishonesty with kid gloves. Are you just a coward, or do you think lies are OK as long as they serve the left's interests? Hey, Bernie, you think college should be free. Did you get advice on college finances from your wife?

I'm not sure how this helps Trump--if he beats Bernie or embarrasses him, it doesn't really hurt Clinton even by extension. If he loses to Bernie, he'd look weaker than ever--losing to a guy who Hillary is beating for her nomination. And as for exposure, he hasn't had any trouble getting exposure so far. He'll probably be better off coming up with some reason to bail out of the debate, maybe fighting over the rules or something.

Hillary is avoiding debating Bernie because she's trying to advance the idea that the general election has started, and is frustrated that Bernie fans have still not rallied to her. But it's not Bernie's fault--it's on the candidate to unify the party, not on the party to just grudgingly "get in line" (even though many do so automatically, you'd want them at least somewhat motivated to campaign and bring voters to the polls).

The problem is Hillary is just a dud as a candidate, and everyone in her camp has been trying to unconvince themselves of this.

"Trump would be best suited to treat it as a Charity Boxing Exhibition: toss a few light punches while winking at the crowd that both men are in on the show."

That's another possibility--treat it as a bit of a joke, steer all answers (if you cannot get the questions agreed to ahead of time) onto soft subjects giving you the opportunity to make jokes and get laughs.

There are the lies that you tell when cornered, when you need to get out of a jam, when you need to deflect attention from something that you don't want people to see.

An unforced lie is something else. She could just have easily have said, "We are considering it." Or: "It is complicated scheduling a debate and to do it would be to miss many other events that we very much want to do." She didn't need to lie. It shows an instinct not just for self-protection but for lying. Lying is just the natural form of expression for this person — that's what it makes me think.

Althouse's use of "unforced lie" is correct in that we're talking about a lie that has no purpose. Often, Hillary's (or anyone's) lies serve to shield them, or advance some goal. But it's the "unforced" lies, that is the ones that are pointless, that baffle us.

Hillary could have easily said "I think we've done enough debates and I don't plan to do more". Pretending she hadn't considered it served no purpose, particularly when she was going to bail on the idea a couple days later.

This is great for Trump. Not for Bernie though. He can squash Bernie's free giveaways (which is all Bernie has ever had) in one fell swoop. But expect Bernie's supporters to throw stones at Trump. They are violent.

Ms. Althouse has it figured out. Lying is the natural form of expression for Hillary. You don't have tgo squeeze them out of her; all you have to do is wait for her to open her mouth, and a lie will fly out.

@madAsHell, I am in awe that she is still standing as a candidate and winning delegates given there is both a right-wing conspiracy and left-wing conspiracy (think Obama -- Bernie is just a malformed joke) going on, and not to mention her own overly calculated (to keep the left-wingers, aka Obama at bay) unforced errors with the email server.

I'm sure that Trump is thinking that Hillary will be the nominee. Why not show up for a charity debate with her opponent, act nice, and hope that when the general election happens between him and Hillary, those disappointed Bernie supporters will cast their ballot for Trump instead of the hated Hillary?

1) He can siphon off Bernie voters he needs. He just can't treat Bernie the way ne treated Ted, Marco, Jeb, etc... He needs to placate him.2) Money has to go to charity as requested3) He has to show the common ground they share (outsider, rigged system)

AND...he knows the fix is in for Hillary, so unless she's indicted, he's not facing Bernie in the General.

I think that John Tuffnell is right. Both Sanders and Trump probably win, and Hillary loses. She was playing it safe, not willing to risk another debate with Sanders so close to her coronation as Dem nominee. She mostly has the nomination locked up, esp with all her SuperDelegates, and just has to coast to the convention - unless her SuperDelegates abandon her in droves after a disasterous performance. Maybe Sanders, up against that reality, may finally seriously go after her for her email issues. And everything else too. Her problem here is that this makes her look weak. But I don't think that she can take the chance now that Trump is involved. It is one thing to debate a wacky septegenarian. Quite another to go up against Trump, esp so soon after the State Dept IG report on her illegal use of her private email server.

Another unforced error by Team Clinton. I expect Trump to be gentle on Bernie as this is not only an attack on Clinton but a pitch for Bernie's supporters. I expect much agreement during the debate and good feelings at the end.

And then when he clobbers Hillary in the debates, it will look worse by comparison.

I think "gratuitous lie" is what we're going for here, rather than "unforced lie." Or is that a regionalism?

Brando, this helps Trump by helping Bernie. Keeping Sanders in the race, keeping him strong and challenging Clinton. It makes her fight a two-front war. Don't expect Trump to land any solid blows, that won't be his purpose.

"Brando, this helps Trump by helping Bernie. Keeping Sanders in the race, keeping him strong and challenging Clinton. It makes her fight a two-front war."

I considered it, but even more stature for Bernie in a well-watched debate wouldn't make him more likely to stay in the race--at this point, he's staying in it at least until the convention. Even if Bernie lost California badly, I don't see him giving up until the nomination is made official.

But if the debate is softball and jokey--opportunities to get quips and one-liners in that wouldn't fly in normal debates--I could see that as a chance for Trump to try and humanize himself. Bernie probably just wants as many platforms as possible to talk about breaking up banks and redistributing wealth.

Trump casually helps Bernie totally out-maneuver Hillary. It's like he was watching Bernie struggle to hit a golf ball so he came over, made a few corrections to Bernie's stance and grip and on the next swing Bernie absolutely clobbered the ball 300 yards, right down the middle.

Both Hillary and Donald have told some whoppers. It's not the lie. It's who you lie to. Democrats think it's ok to lie to Republcans. It serves a higher good. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." That's a forgivable, even laudatory lie in that it helped pass health care legislation. But Hillary is not lying to Republicans. She's lying to Sanders supporters who are the prissy sort who don't comprehend America's urgent need for a Hillary presidency.........There's something genial about Trump's lies. They're far less manipulative and calculating than Hillary's. He's making a sale, and Americans are more forgiving of salesmanship than of fraud.......In any event, Trump and Sanders can meet on the debate stage and across a great divide of ideology and goals, both men can agree that Hillary really sucks.

Biden is out in his driveway this morning, whistling and smiling, washing his Corvette with a soapy rag and a garden hose. He's wearing his very short, cut-off jeans and a tee-shirt that says, "Who wants me in their mouth?"

The fun part will be watching the Clintonite's reaction. I'm sure they will take a page from Obama and call her the only adult in the room, above the fray, Presidential. That won't last five minutes before the condescension and venom begin to spew.

She will come out of this looking small and immaterial....if it happens.

We get it. You're a Clinton gal and nothing and nobody can move you from your position. No number of obvious, conspicuous lies can get you to criticize Hillary! No self-serving, law breaking corruption makes you second guess.

The first thing they have to do is pick the Charities. Trump's third can go to families of fallen Vets and living Disabled Vets, and Bernie's third can go to the Tenured Old Communists Home, and a common third can go to 9/11 families in NYC and New Jersey.

Trump's doing this to 1) wound Hillary, 2) connect with Bernie voters, 3) earn general like-ability points. It's win-win-win for him unless he blows it by getting nasty towards Bernie. I don't think that will happen but Trump is, ahem, unpredictable. And that very unpredictability makes every prediction on this page suspect, including mine.

What I take from this is how highly manipulative Trump is and on a very base level.

Trump refused to debate Cruz when it got down to the two men (I know about Kasich). Trump knew people wanted to see one, but he also understood the underdog has more to gain, and so he made a decision purely in his own self interest. Earlier, he had tried to manipulate Rubio into staying in the race when a divided field would have benefited him.

Bernie is virtually mathematically eliminated. Hillary has netted several million more votes, and while Sanders needs more than 70% of the remaining delegates to realistically contest, he is polling far below that rate. Since his message has clearly gotten out, only vanity or a desire to see Trump win explains his continued run. A Donald/Bernie debate will let Sanders bask in the spotlight some more, but at a cost of helping Trump and damaging Hillary.

Old man, the young sales lady is flirting with you to get you to buy the overpriced item. Once you own that bauble, it will forever by a reminder of your vanity and gullibility.

Wow. Trump can ask Sanders about the Clinton emails! List out the negatives from the IG report, and get Sanders to agree to them - which Clinton would never do. Ask him why he brushed off the issue in the past, and what about now? Wouldn't it be awful if someone so egregiously careless with our nation's strategies was in the Oval Office? What does Sanders think should happen if the FBI recommends consequences as well? Trump can use this to push details of the fiasco into the public eye in a way that he couldn't in a debate with Clinton herself.And Sander probably agrees with him about Clinton and the speaking fee stuff.They may have a lot to talk about.

I don't see this as a sure win for Trump. I'm not sure he can intellectually and deftly lay waste to Bernie's socialist claptrap in a manner necessary for a debate setting. I admire Trump's self-assuredness, but I'm wary of this.

I'd feel a whole lot better if it was Milton Friedman debating Sanders.

Even if this debate doesn't happen it's in today's news cycle. Trending #3 on Twitter right now is #BernieTrumpDebate

And it has to last all day because Bernie is appearing on Kimmel tonight. If Bernie was allowed to leave a "question" for Trump, I'm sure there'll be a Trump question for Bernie. For rating's sake, Kimmel will stretch this.

Hillary, the DNC, and the RNC have to be freaking out.

If this does happed, it may draw more viewers than the 25mil first Fox News GOP Debate.

I don't see this as a sure win for Trump. I'm not sure he can intellectually and deftly lay waste to Bernie's socialist claptrap in a manner necessary for a debate setting.

He doesn't need to. He can pleasantly note that he would be happy with Bernie's socialist claptrap ( not saying it in those terms), if he could be assured that the people running it would always be as decent and well-intentioned as Bernie. However, he knows from experience that such vast government power always ends up falling into the hands of the corrupt, such as Hillary.

Great for Trump because it shows — in addition to the instinct to toward charity

This is not evidence of an instinct to charity. No money is coming out of Trump's pocket. It's a great instinct for promotion of his image. It's also shows good political instincts. Elevating Bernie in any way hurts HRC.

I agree that would be entertaining, and deadly to Clinton. But what if Kimmel is asking all the questions and just wants to talk about Trump's relationship with Susana Martinez and Sanders' plans for Free College?

I wonder how many emails are flying right now between Jimmy Kimmel's Producers and Hillary Clinton's Campaign Team.

"I don't see this as a sure win for Trump." I wouldn't even try. He doesn't need to beat Sanders; he needs to beat Clinton, and making Sanders voters not hate him is a good step in that direction. I would try to find the common ground in ways that don't betray conservative values: We all agree that we need a safety net for the poorest and weakest among us. The trick is to make it work. The trick is to do it in a way that doesn't cheat the middle class and pull them down. The trick is to allow lower class people a chance to make their own success. The trick is to get rid of a massive federal/state/local structure of government jobs that just make it harder for everyone else and take our tax money away from doing anything worthwhile. The trick is to keep tax money out of the pockets of the rich and politically connected. The trick is to help poor sick people without making our hospitals close: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rural-hospitals-beset-by-financial-problems-struggle-to-survive/2015/03/15/d81af3ac-c9b2-11e4-b2a1-bed1aaea2816_story.html. The trick is to be fair to immigrants, while trying to help American workers.

Ann, I can't help but think that your phrasing of "unforced lie" is a misuse of the phrase "unforced error," originally a tennis term. Hit up your OED--"unforced error" should be present but not "unforced lie."

Ann's "unforced lie" comment makes me consider what this says about Hillary (apart from the obvious).

I mean, there are situations in public life when we take care to present ourselves in a certain way. We shape our mask to fit us.

We've remarked before that HRC is a terrible campaigner, and maybe her "unforced lie" shows us why.

As AA points out, she didn't have to lie. She didn't tell us the truth -- "there's no hope in hell we'll debate again" -- nor did she give us the tap-dance reply of "we're considering it."

If you presented this situation to a hundred people, how many of them would have thought to give that same reply? Probably all of them.

So what does it mean when she lied? That she has no political instincts? That she never learned that skill? That she's so tied to her firm belief that she is right that she can't dissemble but has to lie like a three-year-old caught with the cookie jar?

Sanders has nothing to lose. I suspect he will come out roaring like a wrestling interviewee, and immediately get personal and nasty with Trump, like the nasty old SOB he really is. I think it's fantastical to think he's going to let Trump play nice with him. Sanders has nothing to gain from that.

pm317 said...@Meade, nah.. my hunch is that it is not going to be Biden but someone else even more of a stooge than him. It can be anybody that Obama wants and he is not all that into Biden.

I disagree. I think it's been the plan for a while to push Hillary aside in favor of Biden. But she has to beat Sanders fair and square first, the field needs to be cleared for the Democratic savior; otherwise they risk a Berner revolt that jeopardizes the whole plan. Regardless of what Obama thinks of him, there is no one else on that side of the aisle who can win, whereas I see Biden winning easily.

"I think it's fantastical to think he's going to let Trump play nice with him. Sanders has nothing to gain from that."Don't see that that's true. He needs to turn California. Sanders people already think they can beat Trump, but they're about to lose to Clinton. He doesn't need to look crazy and angry to Californians, he needs to look like a nice liberal alternative to a Clinton who's getting in a lot of trouble and who might lose to Trump.

Have to wonder if Trump will wiggle out of it somehow...wrong terms, bad timing etc.

So this is a test of your mental image of Trump. I wonder if your thinking will change if your prediction is wrong. No I don't! That answer will be a big fat no, then you will ask a rhetorical question!

This is sort of like inter-leaguer play in baseball during the regular season. Interesting the first time but don't make a habit of it.

I wonder if Trump will explicitly acknowledge Sanders' sincerity but address that he is too weak to take on crooked Hillary, that he's too much of a wuss to hit her where it hurts (crookedness) and is thus not strong enough to be president. Nice guy but weak.

Looks like Trump is assembling the Reagan economic team...Art Laffer, Larry Kudlow, Steve Moore. He's talking about gutting Dodd-Frank and cutting taxes. Hmmm...And I was told he was really a Democrat by a bunch of super smart people.

As others have said, Trump will find innocuous common ground, maybe nod his head sagely occasionally while furrowing his brow, the wise man intently listening to the ideas of the childish socialist. Hoping to entice some of Bernie's supporters. Most who hate Trump have only seen detrimental sound bites or read out of context quotes. They will tune in to watch Bernie, and accidentaly find that Trump is "not such a bad guy after all"..

Perfect platform for Trump to showcase "acting presidential", while being magnanimous to a guy with whom he apparently shares a fair portion of campaign positions in the first place.

If it happens, expect it to be as someone above said: more of a frank discussion about the issues plaguing the underprivileged and lower-end of the socioeconomic scale in America, and where the common ground exists to move towards practical solutions. Bernie will wax astronomical about things and Trump will seek to bring the discussion down to "how do we get it done?"

If the Trump/Sanders debate actually goes forward (still in doubt), it will be focused solely on Clinton. Both candidates are smart enough to train the fire on the proper target. I suspect, should the debate actually take place, Clinton might well be forced to accept an offer to participate. Ignoring it seems the worst of the bad options.

In retrospect, she should have accepted the original debate with Sanders alone.

I wonder where the idea for the Sanders/Trump debate came from? Is Jimmy Kimmel that smart and devious?

Trump needs to occupy common ground between his designs+promises+values and Sanders' supporters. Otherwise the massive pro-D demographics mean a coronation for Hillary. So I wouldn't expect him to fully unload.

He's mixing it up. Disrupting his opponents' scripted grooves and giving them several bad options to choose from. He's confident he'll react more nimbly and get more advantageous hold of their mistakes+vulnerabilities. He understands their alternatives like a negotiator.

"It shows an instinct not just for self-protection but for lying. Lying is just the natural form of expression for this person — that's what it makes me think" Well, yeah. That's what just about every non-Dem has thought about her since she entered public life. Bill Safire had a pretty good column on it, oh, 20 years ago -- you know, where he tagged her a congenital liar. But he gave examples of lying for "good reason"--non-unforced lies, if you absolutely insist.

"Ann, I can't help but think that your phrasing of "unforced lie" is a misuse of the phrase "unforced error," originally a tennis term. Hit up your OED--"unforced error" should be present but not "unforced lie."

"Of course both phrases apply equally well, here."

You're saying that my putting two words together in an original way that makes sense and is easily understood isn't a good thing because you are familiar with another way the first word is conventionally used? But that's why my coinage is readily intelligible and the phrase is funny.

"You're saying that my putting two words together in an original way that makes sense and is easily understood isn't a good thing because you are familiar with another way the first word is conventionally used? But that's why my coinage is readily intelligible and the phrase is funny."

Oh no, I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all. I realize that's usually what someone is implying when they refer to proper dictionary usage. I just thought it was worth noting. Someday, when "unforced lie" inevitably enters the lexicon, some etymologist might stumble on this as an example of early usage.

This debate is an excellent opportunity for Trump to basically "burn down" the Democratic/Socialist party model without being accused of not being kind enough to women. I expect the debate to focus on the economy. Trump offers a vision of renewing a strong America where prosperity is a by product of opportunity and American creativity, gumption and effort. Sanders offers a vision of a massive welfare state where the masses are supported by taxing the uber wealthy who are brought under control by government regulation. But Sanders has no clue about how to create jobs or expand the economy and I expect Trump to hammer him on that. Trump has a golden opportunity to show that Sanders's model may be well intentioned but will eventually destroy the American spirit and greatness. Sanders might also get into the issue of unfairness of CEO compensation and I would expect Trump to agree, that corporate CEO's are getting too much pay relative to the rest of their employees. That they share some common opinions about corporate greed, unfair trade arrangements and acknowledging the fervor of Bernie's followers might make Trump more attractive to some of Sanders's followers.

Bill was forced to lie when asked if he'd had sexual relations with that woman. . . Miss Lewinsky. He couldn't admit it when forced to answer the question. So he lied.

The forced lie happens a lot in depositions. Some witnesses only admit things they cannot deny, and wont tell the truth unless and until confronted with objective proof of the facts. The interrogator is forcing those lies. It's frequently useful to not confront the witness until trial to expose the lie which undermines that witness' credibility.

Politics is one big trial all the time. Very little to gain by waiting to expose the lie.

Hill didn't have to lie. That makes AA's observation interesting and minting of "unforced lie" creative, esp because Bill is the poster boy of the forced lie.

You're saying that my putting two words together in an original way that makes sense and is easily understood isn't a good thing because you are familiar with another way the first word is conventionally used? But that's why my coinage is readily intelligible and the phrase is funny.

You should have heard them yammer on about my joke about playing Russian Roulette with a shotgun. "The definition of Russian Roulette...." Yeesh!

Mark Twain went on in Tom Sawyer, I think, though it might have been the other, about the power of the second lie. Well, it works for cute boys like Tom Sawyer with a face like a cup of milk, but Hillary should think twice before she tries it, and maybe it's time for her to light out for the territories.

Or it could just be that she doesn't believe she is lying, but just uses one of the "Woman's Ways of Knowing"

Subjective knowledge is characterized by the recognition of the self as an authority. Subjective knowers rely on their own subjective thoughts, feelings and experiences for knowledge and truth - the "infallible gut" as Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule refer to it.

Women with this perspective at some point experienced the development of a "protesting inner voice" (Love and Guthrie 1999), which allowed them to make their own claims to truth and knowledge. Along with the nascent discovery of the inner voice, subjective knowers showed a general distrust of analysis and logical reasoning (Love and Guthrie 1999) and did not see value in considering the weight of evidence in evaluating knowledge. Instead, they considered knowledge and truth to be inherently personal and subjective, to be experienced rather than intellectualized. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule state that subjective knowers often block out conflicting opinions of others, but may seek the support and affirmation of those in agreement. The authors note that half of the women in their study occupied this position, but that they were spread across the full range of ages.

That's 50% of women guys, one quarter of the electorate. And I think Hillary falls into this group. She has power and can't be reasoned with.

What else is it going to be but 90 minutes of Bernie accusing Trump of standing up for the wealthy and wanting to punish poor people and Mexicans? That's what it's going to be, not an honest debate on capitalism vs socialism.

There was a documentary on that period, I can't remember what it was called, where they talked to the families of the disappeared. Well, they were trying to recreate the prison island of Cuba there, many of them were Cuban agents "just trying to help the poor" or whatever their reasoning was. That documentary had exactly the opposite affect on me than, I am guessing, it intended.

I think Pinochet avoided subjecting the populace to a full on civil war, which I am sure the Cuban communists behind the movement would have welcomed. So anybody who thinks that Pinochet is a complete asshole should answer the question, how do you deal with Che, who was quite happy to shoot his opponents in the head against his garden wall personally, before breakfast? How do you deal with the followers of a monster like that?